Ichat webcam quality

whenever i videochat with someone (even with a mac) the quality *****. Like crazy. Can I raise the quality of the webcam?

silentdea wrote:
whenever i videochat with someone (even with a mac) the quality *****. Like crazy. Can I raise the quality of the webcam?
You can if you ***** the ** on the ****. However, be sure you do NOT ***********!
EZ Jim
Mac Pro Quad Core (Early 2009) 2.93Ghz w/Mac OS X (10.6.1) MacBook Pro (13 inch, Mid 2009) 2.26GHz (10.6.1)
G5DP1.8GHz (10.5.8) G4 PowerBook 1.67GHz (10.4.11) iBookSE 366MHz (10.3.9) LED Cinema Display External iSight

Similar Messages

Satellite A350 - webcam quality is poor

Inbuilt webcam quality is poor (a350)
Is this normal for this computer?
Is even worse and switches to black screen only bright light shown at night on Skype.

Hi
The image quality could not be the best because of the dark room where you are using the webcam.
You should increase the brightness in the room and should set the webcam settings to night mode!
Check this Toshiba document:
+Poor picture quality when using the internal webcam under dark light conditions+
http://aps2.toshiba-tro.de/kb0/TSB8A02G80000R01.htm
or this:
+How to change the settings for the integrated webcam if the image is very dark or black+
http://aps2.toshiba-tro.de/kb0/HTD9402LC0000R01.htm

IChat/Webcam Baby Monitor

I am looking for an inexpensive webcam that works in low/no light situations. I want to use iChat and my computer monitor as a baby monitor. We had a baby monitor, but it broke and I would rather spend the money on something that I will be able to use even after I don't need a baby monitor. I think I could use my camcorder in the "nightshot" mode provided it would work with a long 12-15' firewire cable (if that is even available). The computer and the babies room share a common wall so I can just go through the heat vent with the cord. I don't really want to use this big/expensive camcorder for this if I could get a webcam (with sound) that would work as well, then when we don't need to monitor the baby, I could use the camera for it's real intention of iChat/webcam. Any thoughts/ideas would be a big help.

Hi Richard,
Any USB Web cam (with Mac Drivers) and at least the iChatUSBCam utility
iGlasses from the same people would then be useful.
The link above does have a link to popular cameras that are known to work (it is not an exclusive list though).
If distance is an issue look at a wireless cams
11:06 AM Thursday; January 11, 2007

IChat Video Quality Low - Stumped

Hi all,
The basics of my problem is my Ichat video quality is very low.
I have a 10mb connection and im in Tennessee, USA, the person im trying to reach has a 8mb connection and is in California, USA.
When I chat with this person my connection doctor always says im getting a 150 to 300 bit rate. The video quality seems very low to me. Which I would think is super low for such a fast connection between our computers. It never goes above 300.
I've read over many posts here on the forum and we have done the Set Quicktime to 1.5mb & Set my Ichat Video Prefs Limit to "None" and restarted, on both ends. Still limits at 300.
I've also checked the connection speeds on both ends, via pings to various places around the net & across the country and hold down a decent to good 3.5 to 8.5mbs connection.
A little system info:
My Side:
- G5 Dual 2.5GHZ
- Isight (external Camera via Firewire port)
- Airport Wireless Card
- Airport Extreme (with DHCP on to route my multi machines wirelessly on the network)
- Cable Modem - Plugs into Airport - up to 10mbs connection
- iChat 3
- OS X 10.4.8
Other side:
- Intel Imac (brand new)
- Isight (built in)
- Cable Modem direct - up to 8mbs connection
- iChat 3
- OS X 10.4.8
It seems like there is something im overlooking.
Please help as im a bit stumped on this one! :P
- Guru Kismet

I have 3 machines on the Airport network (though none of the others where being used during the testing).
I connected my Cable modem directly to my G5 via Ethernet my speeds jumped! Then I discovered it was being caused by my Airport Extreme. Which loves to knock me off the network from time to time.
In my Airport Extreme "wireless options" I changed the Multicast Rate and then clicked on "Enable interference robustness" my chat speeds jumped from 200k to 800k+. The quality of my video improved dramatically.
After further testing with just one machine and then later restoring all machines back on the Airport Network, I found that there was some sort of interference from other wireless devices around the house, even the ones downstairs.
I would suggest this for anyone having trouble with your Airport Extreme knocking you off the internet or network from time to time or if your Ichat speeds & quality are really low.
Problem solved!
Best wishes to all,
Guru Kismet

IChat - General quality

Hi,
I have been using iChat and Skype for the last 2 years. My Girlfriend lives in the states and we both have macs so life has been made much, much easier.
To be honest, I have tended to favour Skype much more than iChat fo rthe simple reason that the sound quality has so so much better. iChat was ...ok. But Skype made you feel like you were in the same room. I assume that it is the same for everyone and not just us, so why has mac not been able (or willing) to have something of the same quality?
Towards the end of last year we both aquired iSights. We couldn't always get them to work on Skype so we started using them with ichat with the audio muted and talking via skype.
Both of us travel a lot due to work so a lot of the time we are in hotels and I know the internet connection can be a bit crappy, but even at home I have to say that I have always been a little bit dissapointed at the iChat video quality, but only because when I first saw it advertised the picture/video looked amazing. And I have never seen it come close. On the up side, I certainly am not complaing. Both services have kept us in touch like we never could have 5 years ago. And for free, too!
On the subject of Skype, the quality over the 2 years I have been using it has deteriorated to an almost un-usable standard. The amount of users has more than doubled in that time and I also read that ISP's are now managing the flow of peer to peer users, slowing it down when they want to.
Unfortunately I am not that knowledgable about these kind of things and so really don't know how it all works.
Am I wrong to wish that apple could make a better way to comunicate?

Wow, that was pretty cool. I had tried looking for something like that this afternoon but didn't have much luck.
[IMG]http://www.speedtest.net/result/95579018.png[/IMG]
I'll have to do some research in order to learn what relevance my score has, but if you haven't clicked on the link, it was;
Download - 949 kb/s
Upload - 239 kb/s
Latency: 103 ms
Server: Dublin (to Manchester)
Distance: 150 miles
I'd already read some of the posts you guys have commented on this matter and I took the advice of setting streaming speeds and bandwidths. But it didn't have any effect.
I apologise for keep mentioning (skype), but when it was good it certainly was good. Audio wise at least. I'm still curious as to why Mac haven't had anything that good yet. If however iChat and Skype are two completely different things then you'll have to excuse me for my ignorance.

Ichat Video Quality pixelated and very delayed with friend on a Dell

I am on a Imac and have Airport express, but when I chat with my friend on a Dell, my video is pixelated and delayed. I talk with other friends on PC's and the quality is fine.

Add me to this problem. My powerbook G4 (10.4.10) can initiate with a mini G4 with isight (10.5.2) and be perfect in sync with video and audio. But if the mini initiates the chat a very long delay happens between voice and video. I also have an Ibook with 10.4.11 and when chatting with PB G4 are perfect, this applies to an intel imac with 10.5 only, ichat works fine. I think Ichat got affected with 10.5.1 or 10.5.2. I did noticed that if I open QT pro and make a recording(on mini), the actual caption is delayed but play back is ok. I have been playing with the QT preferences but does not seem to work. I saw there is a new update 10.5.3, and it includes so ichats update. Will keep posting. Pedro PS this is all in my home network. TWCNYC with 9600 kbps download and 488 kbps upload.

Multi-Person iChat Video Quality

Hi,
I am using iChat with 2 other person (so a total of 3 people in the video conferencing). What we noticed is that the audio quality remains great. But as soon as the third person joins the video chat, the video quality decrease dramatically.
Any one experience this problem?
Thanks.

Thanks for the reply.
Have you set the Quicktime setting, goto sys
prefs/quicktime/streaming/streaming speed set what
you get from your ISP go no higher then 1.5mbps(dont
use automatic)
I didn't know that Quicktime has anything to do with iChat. I will check that tonight.
In ichats prefs click on video and change bandwidth
limit to NONE.
Alread set to NONE so this shouldn't be a problem.
Also all of you do a speed test
http://www.speedtest.net/ and tell us the up and
download speeds are.
I have done many similar tests and it is consistently rated as "excellent". I will need to do the test to find out the exact rate tonight when I am home.
So, out of the 3 things, sound like the Quicktime setting is the only one that I have not done.
Thanks.

Poor iChat audio quality

When my friend and I use FaceTime on our Macs the sound quality is pretty good, but when we video chat on iChat the sound quality is pretty poor, muffled. We've tried limiting bandwidth and stuff but that didn't help, any ideas? Also, when just using audio chat, the sound is much better

Hi,
iChat takes the setting from System Preferences > Sound > Input as the volume you send to your Buddy.
Ideally this needs to move the Blue response bar to at least Half Way (preferably 3/4s) but not bang in to the right hand end.
8:58 PM Friday; August 12, 2011
Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb( 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Is IChat to Ichat better quality than Skype?

I have a Mac and I use Skype to AV chat to a PC overseas. Would I see better picture quality If they used a Mac overseas and we went Ichat to Ichat?

According to this post ichat is better than skype when chatting mac-mac.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1238443

IChat video quality better with .Mac subscriber than with AIM?

The quality of my video chats with one brother who also has a .Mac account is noticeably better than my chats with another brother, who uses iChat with an AIM account. I'm in the US, they are both in UK. All of us have almost identical iMacs. The one with the AIM account supposedly has a faster Internet connection. My question: is the video quality of iChat better if both users have .Mac accounts than if one has an AIM account?

The Screen names make no difference.
It is about a combination of Proccessor, Video card in iChat 4, internet Connection and settings and the amount of Bandwidth you get out of that connection.
As Defcom (UK) has said start with those basic Settings.
In iChat 3 and 2 the Quicktime setting when on Automatic is read as a 0 (zero) and this effectively Caps iChat.
In iChat 4 the Automatic setting is seen as 384k which is the MINIMUM for a 4 way chat.
As far as an Internet Connection goes this should be at Least 100k in both Up and Downloads.
Due to some data stream management to cut down on Peer-to-Peer file Sharing it pays to limit iChat in the Video Section Bandwidth Limit section to slip under the Radar as it were. There are two main ISP doing this Comcast and Road Runner in the States.
Verizon offer a FioS fibre service that is not that stable in speeds and jumps all over the place which is then too fast for iChat to keep up and that should use the cap in iChat Preferences as well.
8:08 PM Friday; June 20, 2008

Fuji E550 as an iChat webcam?

Wondering if anyone has a link to open source code (or other idea) for turning my Fuji FinePix E550 into a webcam? User manuel says it's only Windows compatible. Any thoughts, leads, suggestions greatly appreciated. Would like to iChat with it and not have to buy a new camera.
~Rembalynn

EZ Jim,
From:     "Ecamm Support" <[email protected]> Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
Subject:      Re: iChatUSBCam Customer Support
Date:      Mon, 3 Oct 2005 16:51:53 -0400
To:     "Amber Nesbitt" <[email protected]>
Hi Amber:
I don't think it works. I don't have one myself to try, but i've heard
people have not had any sucess with that.
Sorry!
Thanks,
Ken
I got this message back from a tech support guy (Ken) about iChatUSBCam. I installed the software, then saw the camera icon on iChat, but when I clicked on it the "working" mouse icon came up and never did anything. I eveantually had to force quit iChat. Help?
Thanks.
~Amber

New to IChat & webcam is not always recognized

Hi. I have an ichat and AIM account and just got an Ezonics mac-compatible webcam. On either account, it almost always will not recognize that the camera is plugged in. Its okay with an audio chat, but not a video. My image appears in the monitor, the camera is working and listed in the USB plug-ins. It has worked once, only when someone requested a videochat with me. Everything is downloaded as well. Any ideas out there about this? Is firewall or netbarrier the cause of this do you think?
Thanks for your help!
powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6) Ezonics EZ 622 webcam

Hi LA Apple,
Welcome to the Apple Discussions
Does this improve things ?
http://www.ecamm.com/mac/ichatusbcam/
9:23 PM Thursday; February 22, 2007

IChat webcam for G3?

Happy New Year all,
Just wondering if anyone uses their G3 iMac for iChat with a webcam? I was thinking of trying an iSight camera, but since Apple only build these into new Macs and Amazon advertise the old cameras at £600 a pop (!!! gold dust!!!) I haven't a clue what to do. Any other firewire cameras used or success with USB cameras on USB1.1???
As usual, many thanks in advance for any experiences shared…
Simon

Hello Simon
For Firewire alternatives to external iSight, take a look at Unibrain, iSweet, Fire-i, or others that claim compatibility with your version of Mac OS X and the apps you want to use with your webcam. Remember to check for microphone capability if you need that.
EZ Jim
PowerBook 1.67 GHz w/Mac OS X (10.4.11) G5 DP 1.8 w/Mac OS X (10.5.1) External iSight

Ichat webcam icon.

people who i know who have webcams, have the icons. other people, have the webcam icon, and say they don't have one. is this possible, or just bs? lol. just seeking a little clarification on this topic. thanks.
macbook Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Hi Steven,
It is possible to use an Add-On utility called iChatUSBCam and not have a camera.
It provides a workaround fro starting One-way video chats when you are not the one with the camera.
Having said that I would think this would only apply in very few cases and is probably not what this is about.
The AIM servers send info to iChat about the capabilities of your Buddies.
You can see these if you click once on a Buddy to highlight an then press the Apple key and i together (Get Info).
Then from the drop down at the top of the window that appears you can select the buddies screen name.
This is where to look up their profile (if they have set one) and keep notes about them.
Also on this page is what they can do in terms of Chats and file sending and so on.
Does the listing of capabilities match what you see or what they are telling you ?
If it matches what you see then try deleting com.apple.ichat.AIM.plist
This is in Users/(your account)/Library/Preferences and restart iChat
It may ask you to confirm your details in the Start Up Screens.
2:37 PM Thursday; March 22, 2007

IChat Video Quality vs. Bandwidth FAQ?

I have done some searching and have come across some video quality threads.
Most of my Video Conferencing is done between my Macbook or iMac 24 across Time Warner cable to another iMac 20. All running OSX 10.4.9.
It appears that the video quality will vary based on the upstream bandwidth availability. In my case I have 600-700kbps pretty consistently. This is pretty decent for a 1 person video conference. Not quite up to the standard I was hoping for but usable.
What is not even usable is doing a multi-person Video conference. In this case two local machines on the same wireless network and one machine across Time Warner cable (we use the same provider). When I bring the second local machine, the conference splits out properly but the video in each widow (other than my preview) is so blurry that it is completely useless.
I would be very curious as to the experience of others attempting to connect across the same service providers network. In this case we are connecting across Time Warner between Florida and Ohio. The performance should be rocking with at least 1MB upstream (I will have to check but I think I have 5MB up).
The other thing that I was wondering is if there is some way to tweak the iChat Video settings to force it into a specific video quality mode (and possible deal with some dropouts).
Sorry for the long post but I am hoping we can begin to compile information on bandwidth requirements and perfomance experienced with various service providers.
Thanks!
Jim

Thanks, I did both tweaks and the really improved the 3 way conference.
My speedtest is below and is on Bright House in Tampa. Note that the best that I achieve watching Connection doctor is in the 700 territors. I do tend to be able to deliver 20fps pretty consistently. But my bandwidth bounces around a lot. I am not a big fan of cable for quality and consistency.
[IMG]http://www.speedtest.net/result/145047165.png[/IMG]
Verizon FIOS is moving into my area and I believe they will offer much better speed than Bright House and certainly more consistency. RF is simply a nightmare to maintain.

Ichat webcam quality

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for